ABSTRACT
The new Near East which came into being between 1918 and 1921 was radically different from the Near East which had existed in 1914. The major change was the destruction of the Ottoman empire, an event which was the result not of any inexorable internal disease but of a hasty decision to enter a war on what proved to be the wrong side. The defeat of the Ottoman empire and the prostration of Iran meant that the European powers, for the first time, had a free hand to impose what settlement they liked upon the Near East. In particular, by the time their settlement was presented at Sevres they were no longer the only European powers who mattered because the return of Russia to the scene in 1920 represented a new factor which had to be taken into account in the final settlement of the Near East.
